Milk (2008)

Milk(2008) — For truly objective film criticism you have to divorce a move from any wider cause it represents and just examine the merits of the film itself. But you know what? No one’s really objective when it comes to art so anyone who claims they are is full of shit. I love this movie. I know that compared to Gus Van Sant’s other experimental films, Milk is a pretty standard by-the-numbers biopic but I love it anyway. Maybe it’s just that a movie wherein California voters defeat a hateful bigoted proposition came out less than a month after California voters approved a hateful bigoted proposition. Sean Penn is great in the title role that won him a second Oscar (and would have deserved it too if The Wrestler hadn’t been the same year). The whole cast is really. I was somewhat amused that almost all the homosexual roles were played by heterosexual actors like Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Diego Luna, and Alison Pill but the homophobic Senator John Briggs is played by openly gay actor Denis O’Hare. Like I said, this movie does point-for-point go through all the motions of any civil rights biopic but it’s all done very well so no worries. This is a great movie.